Mom sues Upper St. Clair psych hospital over alleged rape of her child by fellow patient

The mother of a 10-year-old boy who said he was raped by another patient at Southwood Psychiatric Hospital is suing the facility.

The complaint, filed Monday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, alleges negligence against the children’s mental health hospital located on Boyce Plaza Road in Upper St. Clair.

A message seeking comment from Southwood was not immediately returned Monday afternoon.

According to the lawsuit, the child became a patient there on Oct. 11, 2023, after expressing suicidal ideations.

For the first few nights, the boy was assigned to a private room, the lawsuit said. However, he was then placed in a shared room with two other boys.

One of them, the lawsuit said, had a history of sexually abusing other children.

On the night of Oct. 17, 2023, the boy was raped by one of his roommates, the lawsuit alleged.

“The door to this shared room was cracked open during the entire sexual assault,” the complaint said. “No employees of Southwood monitored the room during the long and painful sexual assault of a minor patient.”

The 10-year-old was discharged from Southwood the next day. He disclosed the alleged assault the next month. His mother immediately reported it to Upper St. Clair police.

The lawsuit alleges that Southwood created a dangerous situation by knowingly placing children with maladaptive sexual behaviors — treatment for which it advertised on its website — in unsupervised rooms with other minor patients.

The complaint also claims the facility was understaffed while misrepresenting to families and patients there would be supervision at all times.

Since the attack, the victim has become emotionally detached, and when he sought additional psychiatric treatment, he had to be sedated, the lawsuit said.

The boy who allegedly committed the assault, the lawsuit said, is being prosecuted in Greene County.